“Never mind, love, you’ll be all right with me.”
They’d eaten little of their meal, and now held hands. “I know I shall,” Edna said, “but he’ll be ever so upset, coming home to an empty house.”
“And he has every right to be, but that’s not my problem. Nor is it yours, either, is it, love? We’ve done it, haven’t we?”
“We have,” she said, “but I just don’t like people to be upset, especially Willy. We did live together nearly twenty years, you know, so it’s bound to come as a bit of a shock to him.”
This was better than looking at the telly in the hotel lounge, and they didn’t seem to care that I was listening. Even Dismal’s head went to and fro between his belches, at the same time eating every grain of rice and chunk of beef. Then he gazed sadly at the couple’s leftovers, as if he hadn’t been fed for a month, till George took the hint and laid them down. “I do love you, Edna,” he said. “More than Willy ever did.”
“He didn’t know any better, did he? But he did his best, according to his lights. He hit me a time or two, though I never knew what for.”
“He won’t do that to you anymore. A man should never hit a woman, not even now and again. But that’s all in the past now, love. We’ll find a council in Wales that’ll give me a job. I’ve already written off to a few, and I’ve got good prospects. We’ll get a room somewhere at first, then rent a nice little bungalow. And if your bloody Willy comes looking for us I’ll knock his block off. I’ll send him on his way all right. I never knew he’d hit you till you told me just now.”
He was a big man, fit and fierce enough to do as he said, which I could only applaud. “He did hit me,” she said. “It was before I knew you. He gave me a black eye once. I didn’t know where to show my face when I went to the supermarket.”
“But why should he hit you, I’d like to know.”
“I never knew, honest I didn’t. He just got up from his chair, after finishing his supper one night, and crack — right in the eye.”
“You must know why he did it.”
She wiped away tears with the curry stained paper napkin. “I don’t know, George. I swear I don’t.”
“I’ll bloody hit him, if he comes near me again. In fact I hope he does. I’ll give the bugger what for.” After a two-minute silence he went on. “In any case, you can’t go back to him now, can you?”
Fascination with their problem made me call for two more pints of lager, one for me and one for Dismal, who thought it was his birthday. I could only surmise that half the women in England must be in the process of leaving their husbands, and half the men running away from their wives, probably both, a real two-way flow, which at least put some energy into the country.
“I’ll never want to go back, either,” she said. “He’d murder me if I did.”
“You’d better put all notion of it behind you, then.”
I was beginning to think of them as distant relations, and George, as if encouraged by me, called for two as well, and when they came Edna said she didn’t like lager, at which he gave a reckless laugh: “I’ll have them both, then.”
“You’ve had a lot already,” she said. “Shall you be able to drive?”
“I’ve driven on a lot more than this.”
“It’s dark, though. You told me you didn’t like driving after lighting up time.”
He held her wrist. “Don’t you worry, my darling. With you on board we’ll be as safe as houses. If it was only me I might take a few risks, but not with you beside me. You’re the most precious thing in the world to me. Anyway, we’ve not far to go now, less than a hundred miles, I think.”
“It’s a lot, though,” she said. “Even an hour ago when it was daylight you nearly had an accident with that little black hatchback.”
I nearly choked on my drink.
“You mean on the M6? I can’t think why he was in such a hurry. He must be in Manchester by now. A real bastard he was. He could have killed us. I wish I’d caught up with him. I’d have wrapped that little Oxo tin around his neck. I’d have stamped the breath of life out of him on the hard shoulder. Road rage wouldn’t have been in it.”
“You’d never have caught him, because I saw him turn off for Wolverhampton. Anyway, there’s a dual carriageway after Chester, and I don’t like the idea of you driving on that in the dark with six pints of lager inside you.”
If the hatchback had peeled off, as she had said, it must have been going to try its luck at Peppercorn Cottage. I took the map from my pocket, to wonder which way I’d be steering in the morning.
“Six pints isn’t so much,” George said. “I’m a big man, don’t forget.”
I considered it time to pass a hand across and introduce myself. “Michael Cullen. I’m going to my farm in Shropshire,” I bragged, “to see how the manager’s getting on with the livestock. I hope you don’t mind me interposing into your conversation, but why don’t you stay the night at the hotel? It’s just across the road, and very comfortable. That’s where I’m spending the night, and it’s only fourteen pounds a head. There are plenty of rooms vacant.”
George finished the first pint. “I’m the sort who likes to push on, through thick and thin.”
“He’s only trying to be kind, darling,” Edna said. “I wouldn’t mind staying there overnight.”
It was late, and the waiters were starting to re-set the tables, as if they did a huge trade with curried breakfasts. “Nor would I,” George said, “but I think we should put as many miles between us and Willy as we can.”
“You think so? Well, I suppose you know as much what he’s like as I do. He’s been your best friend for the last three years.”
He grunted. “I don’t bloody know about that. He wasn’t very pleasant when we went on that walking tour and he couldn’t keep up with me.”
“You never mentioned that before.”
He laughed, and not too lovingly, either. “There are lots of things about him and me you don’t know.”
“I hope you’ll tell me sometime what they are, then. You ought to have done so before.”
“It’ll all come out, dearest, never you fear. We’ll have lots of cosy evenings by the fire talking to each other.”
I paid my reasonable reckoning, and left five quid for the waiters. “Come on, Dismal, and when we go to bed don’t pull the sheets off me, like you did last night.” I offered my hand to George and then Edna. “I hope you get to where you’re going safely but, as I said, there’s plenty of room at the inn if you want to stay overnight.”
They were bickering as to whether or not they should when I left, Dismal hardly able to walk after cleaning up every plate within range.
While scrubbing my teeth I heard George and Edna being shown into the room next to mine, and when the landlady left they were still arguing, though I couldn’t make out the words. I fell into bed, Dismal already snoring and having bad dreams. Served him right. With good ones his tail wagged like a metronome. The man shouted: “I love you, Edna, you know I do. I always have.”
She all but screamed: “I know you do, George. Oh, I know you do. And I love you to bits.”
“It’ll never change,” he bawled. “Never!” Then the banging and balling and shrieking began as they went at it like two parrots, and I thought what a daft prick I had been to suggest they stay here, but how could I have known that with so many empty rooms they would be put in the one next door? The landlady must have had a good laugh on her way down the creaking stairs.
The fact that I’d gathered something about the pursuing hatchback wasn’t much consolation at the noise of explicit fuckery that went on all night. While realising that a man and woman don’t run away together for nothing, it was hard to believe they hadn’t had it in a bed before embarking on the great escape. Or perhaps they’d only managed the occasional knee-trembler in George’s garden shed, and having it off between sheets at last had gone to their heads. I could only curse them on hearing a noise like that of a wardrobe falling down.